Assessment of expected damage on buildings subjected to Lorca earthquake through an energy-based seismic index method and nonlinear dynamic response analyses

The city of Lorca (Spain) was hit on May 11th, 2011, by two consecutive earth-quakes of magnitudes 4.6 and 5.2 Mw, causing casualties and important damage in buildings. Many of the damaged structures were reinforced concrete frames with wide beams. This study quantifies the expected level of damage on this structural type in the case of the Lorca earth-quake by means of a seismic index Iv that compares the energy input by the earthquake with the energy absorption/dissipation capacity of the structure. The prototype frames investigated represent structures designed in two time periods (1994–2002 and 2003–2008), in which the applicable codes were different. The influence of the masonry infill walls and the proneness of the frames to concentrate damage in a given story were further investigated through nonlinear dynamic response analyses. It is found that (1) the seismic index method predicts levels of damage that range from moderate/severe to complete collapse; this prediction is consistent with the observed damage; (2) the presence of masonry infill walls makes the structure very prone to damage concentration and reduces the overall seismic capacity of the building; and (3) a proper hierarchy of strength between beams and columns that guarantees the formation of a strong column-weak beam mechanism (as prescribed by seismic codes), as well as the adoption of counter-measures to avoid the negative interaction between non-structural infill walls and the main frame, would have reduced the level of damage from Iv=1 (collapse) to about Iv=0.5 (moderate/severe damage

Digital Optical Ballistocardiographic System for Activity, Heart Rate, and Breath Rate Determination during Sleep

In this work, we present a ballistocardiographic (BCG) system for the determination of heart and breath rates and activity of a user lying in bed. Our primary goal was to simplify the analog and digital processing usually required in these kinds of systems while retaining high performance. A novel sensing approach is proposed consisting of a white LED facing a digital light detector. This detector provides precise measurements of the variations of the light intensity of the incident light due to the vibrations of the bed produced by the subject’s breathing, heartbeat, or activity. Four small springs, acting as a bandpass filter, connect the boards where the LED and the detector are mounted. Owing to the mechanical bandpass filtering caused by the compressed springs, the proposed system generates a BCG signal that reflects the main frequencies of the heartbeat, breathing, and movement of the lying subject. Without requiring any analog signal processing, this device continuously transmits the measurements to a microcontroller through a twowire communication protocol, where they are processed to provide an estimation of the parameters of interest in configurable time intervals. The final information of interest is wirelessly sent to the user’s smartphone by means of a Bluetooth connection. For evaluation purposes, the proposed system has been compared with typical BCG systems showing excellent performance for different subject positions. Moreover, applied postprocessing methods have shown good behavior for information separation from a single-channel signal. Therefore, the determination of the heart rate, breathing rate, and activity of the patient is achieved through a highly simplified signal processing without any need for analog signal conditioning.Junta de Andalucia European Commission PYC20-RE-040 UGR MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/with PID2019-103938RB-I00European Commissio

Damage assessment on building structures subjected to the recent near-fault earthquake in Lorca (Spain)

The city of Lorca (Spain) was hit on May 11th 2011 by two consecutive earthquakes with 4.6 and 5.2 Mw respectively, causing casualties and important damage in buildings. Lorca is located in the south-east region of Spain and settled on the trace of the Murcia-Totana-Lorca fault. Although the magnitudes of these ground motions were not severe, the damage observed was considerable over a great amount of buildings. More than 300 of them have been demolished and many others are being retrofitted. This paper reports a field study on the damage caused by these earthquakes. The observed damage is related with the structural typology. Further, prototypes of the damaged buildings are idealized with nonlinear numerical models and their seismic behavior and proneness to damage concentration is further investigated through dynamic response analyses

Damage assessment on building structures subjected to the recent near-fault earthquake in Lorca, Spain

The city of Lorca (Spain) was hit on May 11th 2011 by two consecutive earthquakes with 4.6 and 5.2 Mw respectively, causing casualties and important damage in buildings. Lorca is located in the south-east region of Spain and settled on the trace of the Murcia-Totana-Lorca fault. Although the magnitudes of these ground motions were not severe, the damage observed was considerable over a great amount of buildings. More than 300 of them have been demolished and many others are being retrofitted. This paper reports a field study on the damage caused by these earthquakes. The observed damage is related with the structural typology. Further, prototypes of the damaged buildings are idealized with nonlinear numerical models and their seismic behavior and proneness to damage concentration is further investigated through dynamic response analyses.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Askin tumor: Case report and literature review

Askin tumor is an uncommon malignant neoplasm of a neuroectodermic origin that arises from the soft tissues of the thoracopulmonary wall. Defined histologically by Askin and Rosai in 1979 as a malignant small round cell tumor. It is described within a group of malignant neoplasms with an aggressive behavior. The lack of clinical guides that establish a standardized management contributes to its poor prognosis and short overall survival. Once a primitive neuroectodermal tumor has been diagnosed, treatment will consist of a multimodal management

Capacitive platform for real-time wireless monitoring of liquid wicking in a paper strip

Understanding the phenomenon of liquid wicking in porous media is crucial for various applications, including the transportation of fluids in soils, the absorption of liquids in textiles and paper, and the development of new and efficient microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs). Hence, accurate and real-time monitoring of the liquid wicking process is essential to enable precise flow transport and control in microfluidic devices, thus enhancing their performance and usefulness. However, most existing flow monitoring strategies require external instrumentation, are generally bulky and unsuitable for portable systems. In this work, we present a portable, compact, and cost-effective electronic platform for real-time and wireless flow monitoring of liquid wicking in paper strips. The developed microcontroller-based system enables flow and flow rate monitoring based on the capacitance measurement of a pair of electrodes patterned beneath the paper strip along the liquid path, with an accuracy of 4 fF and a full-scale range of 8 pF. Additionally to the wired transmission of the monitored data to a computer via USB, the liquid wicking process can be followed in real-time via Bluetooth using a custom-developed smartphone application. The performance of the capacitive monitoring platform was evaluated for different aqueous solutions (purified water and 1 M NaCl solution), various paper strip geometries, and several custom-made chemical valves for flow retention (chitosan-, wax-, and sucrose-based barriers). The experimental validation delivered a full-scale relative error of 0.25%, resulting in an absolute capacitance error of ±10 fF. In terms of reproducibility, the maximum uncertainty was below 10 nl s−1 for flow rate determination in this study. Furthermore, the experimental data was compared and validated with numerical analysis through electrical and flow dynamics simulations in porous media, providing crucial information on the wicking process, its physical parameters, and liquid flow dynamics

SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA detection using the novel CoVradar device associated with the CoVreader smartphone app

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.bios.2023.115268The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovative approaches to its diagnosis. Here we present CoVradar, a novel and simple colorimetric method that combines nucleic acid analysis with dynamic chemical labeling (DCL) technology and the Spin-Tube device to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in saliva samples. The assay includes a fragmentation step to increase the number of RNA templates for analysis, using abasic peptide nucleic acid probes (DGL probes) immobilized to nylon membranes in a specific dot pattern to capture RNA fragments. Duplexes are formed by labeling complementary RNA fragments with biotinylated SMART bases, which act as templates for DCL. Signals are generated by recognizing biotin with streptavidin alkaline phosphatase and incubating with a chromogenic substrate to produce a blue precipitate. CoVradar results are analysed by CoVreader, a smartphone-based image processing system that can display and interpret the blotch pattern. CoVradar and CoVreader provide a unique molecular assay capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA without the need for extraction, preamplification, or pre-labeling steps, offering advantages in terms of time (similar to 3 h/test), cost (similar to epsilon 1/test manufacturing cost) and simplicity (does not require large equipment). This solution is also promising for developing assays for other infectious diseases.FEDER/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Economia y Conocimiento CV20-77741, A-FQM-760-UGR20, PID 2019-110987RB-I00, PID 2019-103938RB-I00Spanish MCIN/AEI P18-RT-2961, P18-TP-4160FEDER/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Salud y Familias PIP-0232-2021European CommissionMCIN/AEI PTQ 2020-011388, IJC 2020-043307-IEuropean Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR PTQ 2020-011388, IJC 2020-043307-

Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for Oxygen Determination in Refrigerated Intelligent Packaging

In this paper, we present a passive tag for the determination of gaseous oxygen in intelligent packaging (IP). The power supply for this tag is obtained from thermoelectric energy harvesting taking advantage of the temperature difference between a cooled package and the human body. For this purpose, a compact Peltier module is attached to the surface of the pack7 age. This device is able to generate 1.2 mW when a temperature difference of 25 °C is applied between its surfaces. A dc-to-dc boost converter is included to generate an output voltage of 3.3 V and an output current of 225 µA from the harvested energy by the Peltier cell, which are used to supply the measurement circuitry. A luminescent membrane sensitive to oxygen is used as a gas detector in the package. The generated signal is compared to a reference value to evaluate if the oxygen concentration inside the package falls below or above a predetermined value. This is shown by turning on a green or a red LED, respectively. The proposed system presents a resolution of 0.02% of the predicted oxygen concentration in the range of interest (0%–5%) and a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.007%, which makes the instrument appropriate to be used in IP and active packaging (AP) technology.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competivity under Project CTQ2016-78754-C2-1-R and in part by the Unidad de Excelencia de Química aplicada a biomedicina y medioambiente, University of Granada. The work of P. E. Araque was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (MECD) under Grant FPU13/05032. The work of I. M. P. de Vargas-Sansalvador was supported by the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant 706303 (MultiSens

Smart facemask for wireless CO2 monitoring

This study was funded by Spanish MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ (Projects PID2019-103938RB-I00 and ECQ2018-004937-P) and Junta de Andalucía (Projects B-FQM-243-UGR18, P18-RT-2961 and postdoctoral grant of PE DOC_00520). The projects were partially supported by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF).Source codes for microcontroller firmware (developed with MPLAB X IDE v5.45) and AndroidTM smartphone application (SmartMask v1.0) are available at an open-access repository (URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10481/71668) under a Creative Commons license.The use of facemasks by the general population is recommended worldwide to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Despite the evidence in favour of facemasks to reduce community transmission, there is also agreement on the potential adverse effects of their prolonged usage, mainly caused by CO2 rebreathing. Herein we report the development of a sensing platform for gaseous CO2 real-time determination inside FFP2 facemasks. The system con- sists of an opto-chemical sensor combined with a flexible, battery-less, near-field-enabled tag with resolution and limit of detection of 103 and 140 ppm respectively, and sensor lifetime of 8 h, which is comparable with recommended FFP2 facemask usage times. We include a custom smartphone application for wireless powering, data processing, alert management, results displaying and sharing. Through performance tests during daily activity and exercise monitoring, we demonstrate its utility for non-invasive, wearable health assessment and its potential applicability for preclinical research and diagnostics.B-FQM-243-UGR18 Consejeria de Economia, Innovacion, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucia (Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment, Government of Andalucia)P18-RT-2961 Consejeria de Economia, Innovacion, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucia (Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment, Government of Andalucia)DOC_00520 Consejeria de Economia, Innovacion, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucia (Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment, Government of Andalucia

Persistence of COVID-19 Symptoms after Recovery in Mexican Population

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a highly contagious infectious disease that has caused many deaths worldwide. Despite global efforts, it continues to cause great losses, and leaving multiple unknowns that we must resolve in order to face the pandemic more effectively. One of the questions that has arisen recently is what happens, after recovering from COVID-19. For this reason, the objective of this study is to identify the risk of presenting persistent symptoms in recovered from COVID-19. This case-control study was conducted in one state of Mexico. Initially the data were obtained from the participants, through a questionnaire about symptoms that they had at the moment of the interview. Initially were captured the collected data, to make a dataset. After the pre-processed using the R project tool to eliminate outliers or missing data. Obtained finally a total of 219 participants, 141 recovered and 78 controls. It was used confidence level of 90% and a margin of error of 7%. From results it was obtained that all symptoms have an associated risk in those recovered. The relative risk of the selected symptoms in the recovered patients goes from 3 to 22 times, being infinite for the case of dyspnea, due to the fact that there is no control that presents this symptom at the moment of the interview, followed by the nausea and the anosmia with a RR of 8.5. Therefore, public health strategies must be rethought, to treat or rehabilitate, avoiding chronic problems in patients recovered from COVID-19